Chocolate Prune Hazelnut Spread

When I was younger, I loved a picture book called Chocolatina.  It was about a girl named Chocolatina who loved chocolate more than anything, and her health teacher who insisted that you should only eat healthy foods and loved prunes the way Chocolatina loved chocolate.

The health teachers favorite saying was "You are what you eat," and one day Chocolatina wished that it would be true.  The next day she woke up as a chocolate girl.  As it turns out, being chocolate is no fun especially when you find out your health teacher is actually a chocoholic in disguise and she tries to eat you.

Now that i'm older and wiser, I've come up with a way that Chocolatina and her health teacher could have avoided all those problems, and actually formed quite a strong friendship.  The thing is, prunes have gotten a bad rep for no reason.  They're actually quite tasty, and even more tasty when you pair them with chocolate.  Chocolate + prunes = absolutely delicious.

In today's recipe, I paired prunes with chocolate and with hazelnuts.  There was seriously no way it could go wrong, and I was right, it didn't.  This spread is sososo good.  So good it could have even have brought Chocolatina and her health teacher together.

Chocolate Prune Hazelnut Spread

• 1 1/4 cup hazelnuts
• 1/2 cup prunes
• 1/4 cup extra dark cocoa powder
• 1/4 milk
• 1/4 cup honey

Preheat oven to 350F.  Place nuts on baking sheet, and roast in oven for 6-8 minutes, until nuts are fragrant and the skins are splitting.  Remove skin from as many nuts as possible and place in a food processor or vitamix.  Blend on and off until nuts have formed a butter.  Stop and scrape down the sides of the machine as necessary.  Add remaining ingredients and blend until completely blended and smooth.  Make sure there are no prune clumps.  Transfer to a jar and store in fridge.  Spread on toast or fruit, swirl into oatmeal, or simply eat off a spoon.

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